


Just A Little Ol' Little Bit

by HurtKummelAineBlanderson



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: (not with Luke though), Angst, Drabble, Fluff, Healing, M/M, just warning you, previous break up, the drabbliest drabble, this is really not relationship-centric, well kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 20:21:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18532453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HurtKummelAineBlanderson/pseuds/HurtKummelAineBlanderson
Summary: Michael realises he might be starting to heal.





	Just A Little Ol' Little Bit

**Author's Note:**

> Title (and the idea for the fic, really) from "Someone New" by Hozier.
> 
> I apparently must have read way too much fanfiction all at once, because this idea wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it down (all in one go lol)

Michael passed a couple, walking hand in hand and enjoying the sun, then waited for a lady pushing a baby in a pram to pass, before turning to weave through the seats and tables of his favourite café. He pushed the heavy wooden door open and sighed when all at once the smells of banana bread and freshly-ground coffee hit him. He joined the line, moving around some people leaving the café with their cups and plates and bags, and pulled out his phone to check the time. 2:43. 17 minutes until he needed to be at the station to pick Calum up, and after that drop him home (he’d offered – he knew he couldn’t back out), then back to his own house, to spend the evening writing the last two sections of his essay due next week. And what about dinner – would he have time in between somewhere to pick something up? Michael stopped his train of racing thoughts there, and breathed in, deeply, then out, reminding himself of what he was trying to learn: one step at a time. He repeated it in his mind – “one step at a time. One step at a time.”

 

He was only two people away from the counter now, so he took a quick look at the appetizing-looking pastries and cakes in the display cabinet, to see if anything would go with his usual order of “a medium chai latte, please”, before deciding that he didn’t really have the money to spare anyway. The tall woman in front of him finally moved to the pick-up area, so Michael shuffled up to the counter to place his order. At the cashier’s “hi, how can I help you today?”, Michael looked up to meet his eyes, and felt his stomach drop away. The boy behind the counter was _beautiful_. His blue, blue eyes, and his soft blond hair – _oh_. Michael stumbled through his order, still stunned into near-silence. 

 

As he shifted to stand behind the coffee machine in the pick-up section, Michael’s stomach dropped even further as he realised that this was the first time he’d found someone attractive in _months_. His last relationship – and all the hell that it’d been – had ended almost 11 months ago. He’d been so clouded by the memories of that particular disaster that he’d forgotten – for months – that beautiful boys existed. That beautiful boys, beautiful people, beautiful ponds with cute ducks, beautiful little families, sunlit parks and perfect beaches were even out there. He hadn’t been looking for them. 

 

He realised, suddenly, that maybe this – suddenly seeing something that lights up his senses, pulls him out of his head, makes him feel happy – is what healing feels like. That the heavy, dark, consuming thoughts hadn’t been around, all afternoon, not since he’d cried (unnecessarily – and it’s not like he cried that much) when he dropped and nearly broke a plate in the kitchen that morning. Maybe that silly-sounding meditation app on his phone had actually been doing something – giving him some ‘perspective’ on his thoughts or whatever it was meant to do. (He doubted that was it – he knew it only really worked if you use it regularly, every day, and he’d only been using it in fits and starts, whenever he had a spare 10 minutes on the train, which wasn’t often).

 

And it might have been the beautiful boy behind the counter, and his hair and his striking eyes, that sent his pressing thoughts and his doubt hurtling away as if they were carried by the wind – Michael was pretty certain that that was part of it. But he also thought that maybe he was finally healing, just a bit. That the tomorrows that he’d been promising himself would be better actually might be. He felt everything at once – happiness, a pang of sadness for all the pain throughout the previous months, and most of all, hope. He’d been working for this, fighting for it. Maybe he’d started to heal. Maybe the little pieces of happiness would come more often now. 

 

And if he goes back to that same café next time, and happens to see that same cashier, and ends up with a phone number scrawled on his takeaway cup – that’s just one of the benefits of all this ‘healing’ stuff, right?


End file.
